Having cast himself into the mould of a master in the skills of religious polarization, saffron-clad Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath is now all set for a makeover as ‘vikas purush’. This urge to re-invent himself as a development-oriented Chief Minister clearly manifests itself in a meeting he here on Tuesday with Bollywood bigwigs, before whom he sought to showcase a grand new film city near Greater Noida. And together with that he also talked about setting up a ‘Financial City’ in the neighbourhood. While the Film City is proposed to be a larger version of existing film cities in Mumbai or Hyderabad, the idea of a financial city was taken from Gujarat. Ironically the Gujarat model – Gujarat International Financial Tech-city (GIFT) – has remained a non-starter. Yet, the UP Chief Minister was impressed by the concept which would mean facilitating banks and financial institutions to set up their units to create a financial hub in the vicinity of the film city. Yogi left no stone unturned to spread the red-carpet to convince film-makers and others from the cine city that he was going to create India’s largest and best-equipped film city in the country’s most populous state. Even as the meeting seemed to have been organized in a hurry, as it failed to draw very many producers, the Chief Minister made it a point to convey to them that he meant business. Other than Satish Kaushik, Vivek Agnihotri and Ashok Pandit, who happens to be the chairperson of a self-styled Film Producers Association, those who flew down to attend the meeting were actors, singers, lyricists, stand-up comedian and screenwriters. These did include some big names like Anupam Kher, Udit Narayan, Anup Jalota, Kailash Kher, Raju Srivastava and Manoj Muntasir, but none of them have much to do with making of films. How much difference could they make to the proposed project in the absence of many film-makers is a million-dollar question. Yet there can be no denying that the Chief Minister has set the ball rolling for throwing open a much-desired avenue, which several preceding governments initiated without making any concrete headway. The first time that a film city was conceived and built-in UP, was in Sector 16 of NOIDA, where a 100- acre area was earmarked for it by the then Congress regime. Over the years , however, it turned into a media hub and today it has studios of all major TV news channels or offices of some big corporate houses. Over the recent past, it was Samajwadi Party chief minister Akhilesh Yadav, who mooted the idea of two film cities in the state in 2015. One of these was proposed along the 300- km Lucknow-Agra Expressway and the other in Trans-Ganga Industrial city (in Unnao district), about 55 km from the state capital, Lucknow. The MoU was signed in the presence of famous Bollywood producer Boney Kapoor and Ravi Kishen, the well-known face of Bhojpuri films, who is now a BJP MP from Gorakhpur. The development of the film cities was to be undertaken on a public-private partnership model. While the Agra-expressway film city was to be set up in collaboration with Mumbai based Purple Seas company, the Unnao project was to be undertaken by a consortium led by Ravi Kishen. However, both projects continued to remain in their nascent stage only until the fall of the Akhilesh government and were finally abandoned by the current Yogi regime. Three-and-a-half years down the line , Yogi Adityanath has given re-birth to the idea of a long-cherished film city, with all ingredients of a megaproject. Of the three options put forth by officials of NOIDA, Greater NOIDA and Yamuna Expressway Authority, the Chief Minister gave his final nod to the biggest land parcel of 1000 acres in sector 16 of Yamuna Expressway Authority, in the vicinity of Greater NOIDA. The site was presented as the most strategic one – barely 50 km from the national capital and just 5 km from Jewar, where the construction of the country’s biggest international airport together with an aviation hub was already underway. Interestingly, all other attractions and incentives showcased by the Chief Minister appeared like old wine in a new bottle. A film policy, drafted during the Akhilesh Yadav's regime was given a few twists and turns to be scaled into a new film policy sometime last year. Sure enough, it has all the incentives for film-makers who choose UP as their destination for shooting their film. Thus a subsidy of up to Rs. 2 crores was offered. Now the amount would vary, depending on the length of the shooting in locales of UP, besides other factors. The subsidy level has been maintained exactly how Akhilesh Yadav had proposed in the original draft. Any film-maker shooting more than 50% of the film in UP would be entitled to a subsidy of Rs. 1 crore. This could be raised to Rs. 2 crores if 75% of the shoot was carried out in UP. Besides, if four key artistes in the script were to be hired from within the state, the producer would get an additional ex gratia payment of Rs. 25 lakh. This figure would be raised to Rs. 50 lakh if the entire cast were to be picked up from the state. However, what the Chief Minister has sought to urge the film-makers this time was a larger focus on “Bhartiyata” (Indianness). Reminding them of the success of TV mega circles like Ramayana and Mahabharat, he called upon them to take up traditional Indian themes for their storyline. He also made it a point to state, “we will also provide a high capacity world-class data centre along with all pre-production and post-production infrastructure, processing laboratories, high-end VFX and digital techniques.” And went on to add, “in UP , we have exotic locations; we have cultural diversity; we also have human resource; and now we are going to have a film city with the state of art facilities, which will surpass any other film city across the country Notwithstanding the tall claims and proclamations about setting up of a film city as well as a financial city, the big question that remains unanswered is – whether it would be possible for Yogi to translate all these far-fetched dreams into reality well before the end of his term, 18 months from now - and enable him to acquire his much-desired sobriquet of ‘vikas purush’? #YogiAdityanath #FilmCity #GreaterNoida #UttarPradesh